Active Shooter Joins Floods as Preparedness-Plan Focus

By Darrell Preston -
Aug 20, 2012

Run. Hide. Fight.

Add active shooters to the hurricanes, floods, blackouts
and other threats that governments prepare residents for after a
man wearing a gas mask, ballistic helmet and vest gunned down
dozens of people in a Colorado movie theater last month.

A video titled “Run. Hide. Fight. Surviving an Active
Shooter Event” produced by the city of Houston has gotten
almost 900,000 hits on YouTube.com. The almost six-minute piece,
made with U.S. Homeland Security Department funds, was released
after the theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, and depicts a
gun-wielding man invading an office and shooting workers.

“It may feel like just another day at the office,” the
narrator says, before the violence begins. “But occasionally
life feels more like an action movie than reality.”

The video, which suggests steps to take if confronted by a
shooter, shows a shift by local governments from focusing on
preparation against a terrorist attack to the threat posed by
gun violence, said Mark Lomax, executive director of the
National Tactical Officers Association, a Doylestown,
Pennsylvania-based law-enforcement group.

Local governments began recognizing and preparing for
active shooters before the suspect in the Aurora incident opened
fire July 20 in a crowded theater during an early morning
showing of a new Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” The
accused gunman, James Holmes, left 12 people dead and 58
injured, according to Arapahoe County prosecutors.

Accelerating Pace

The New York Police Department published a report in 2011
recommending ways for those in charge of building security to
prevent and respond to attacks after a study detailed 281 mass
shootings from 1966 to 2010, with the pace accelerating in the
past decade.

The NYPD began the study after terrorist and mass-shooting
incidents in Bali, Mumbai and Virginia Tech. The result was
oriented toward training building managers and police officers
in rapid response, said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne,
a department spokesman. The force has instructed them on
security procedures in the event of an attack, he said.

The run, hide, fight video isn’t in use in New York, to his
knowledge, Browne said.

‘Common Sense’

“So many of these things are individualistic in terms of
what victims may confront,” Browne said. “Is there any
potential to resist? The answer is, it depends on the
circumstances. A lot of the response depends on individuals
exercising common sense.”

As in Aurora, events can happen so fast, victims are down
before first-responders can arrive, he said.

“The problem with the lone shooter is the immediacy of
it,” Browne said. “It doesn’t help you in the first couple of
minutes or seconds when someone is there shooting a gun.”

The preparedness video and training in cities such as New
York show how the rising number of incidents involving mass
killing by gun-wielding suspects is prompting attention by
municipalities nationwide, Lomax said.

“With the increase in the number of active domestic
shooters, I see local governments becoming very active in
protecting their local residents,” Lomax said. “It’s getting
to the point where local government is realizing the severity of
the situation.”

Adding Shooters

Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, originally began
preparing under a federal Regional Catastrophic Planning Grant
for a category 5 Hurricane, a terrorist attack with an
improvised explosive device and a pandemic influenza event.

The city spent about $200,000 on the video, which was
filmed in the offices where it issues building permits, Mayor
Annise Parker said by telephone. The shooter in the video, made
with professional actors and city employees, was an officer on
the city’s special weapons and tactics, or SWAT, team, she said.

Last year the city added “active shooter” to the list of
potential events that it should prepare for after the Mumbai
attack “and other high profile active-shooter events,” said
Jessica Michan, a Parker spokeswoman. In 2008, Pakistani gunmen
killed about 160 people in the Indian city.

Houston used the grant for research and to run an exercise
involving local first responders, state and federal authorities
and companies, Michan said. During this active-shooter planning
the city decided to produce the video and other written material
to educate citizens on tips to protect themselves during such an
event, Michan said.

Attack Anxiety

“We found that there were a lot of people out in the
community with anxiety about how to respond to an active-shooter
event,” Parker said. “There was clearly a need, so we decided
it was appropriate.”

The video advises finding a quick way out of a location
threatened by a gunman, or failing that, to hide and turn off
lights and cell-phone ringers. As a last resort, it suggests
fighting back with improvised weapons. The film depicts office
workers responding to a shooting.

In Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where a gunman killed six people
at a Sikh temple before being wounded by police and taking his
own life Aug. 5, Mayor Steve Scaffidi said he “struggled with
the harshness” of the the video. It “could have been handled a
little more sensitively,” he said.

“But I think any time you get a message that may save
lives, it is valuable,” Scaffidi said. “These aren’t becoming
rare occurrences. What, we’ve had three of them in two months,
maybe more? These are things we’ll have to deal with.”

Surviving Shootings

Homeland Security also has developed a program that
includes seminars, online courses, posters, a booklet and a
pocket card highlighting how to survive a shooter attack. The
guidance was first compiled in a 2008 booklet aimed at retailers
and mall owners. Since then, 125,000 people in government and
businesses have taken the training.

The National Retail Federation, a Washington-based trade
group, approached the department about doing the booklet after a
gunman killed eight people and took his own life in the
Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, in December 2007.

Houston has received requests from law enforcement groups
around the country, insurance companies and civic groups that
want to use the video, Parker said. “It struck a chord.”